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Transmissions

Paccar is the latest North American truck manufacturer to bring a proprietary automated transmission to market. HDT's Jim Park got a sneak preview of the new 12-speed Paccar Automated Transmission ahead of its official launch. Here are his driving impressions.

Automated manual transmissions surpassed even the most optimistic predictions for adoption. How will the next generation of smarter, faster, and better connected AMTs boost safety, efficiency and, fuel economy?

Automated manual transmissions rule the roost at U.S. Xpress today. Out of some 7,000 U.S. Xpress trucks running today, the fleet is down to just 16 “legacy” models still equipped with manual transmissions.

You may think of Eaton as primarily a transmission company, but at the IAA Commercial Vehicle Show in Hannover, Germany, this fall, they showed a range of future technologies both near and far, from transmissions for electric vehicles to autonomous vehicle technology to waste heat recovery.

Volvo Trucks has put a new spin on an old powertrain management strategy. By locking out top gear on its I-Shift overdrive transmission, drivers can pull loads efficiently in 11th gear (direct drive) and still get the performance they want.

For years Eaton has been improving its UltraShift Plus series to make the heavy-duty automated manual transmissions do more things and do them better. Blended Pedal, Urge to Move features make Eaton automated gearboxes more useful.

Cummins and Eaton may have finally nailed it with their SmartAdvantage Powertrain combo, reports Equipment Editor Jim Park in July's Test Drive. The SmartAdvantage powertrain offers fuel and weight saving, as well as a very, very good driving experience.

Every year for the last two or three centuries (or so it seems), March has meant a trip to Louisville, Ky., and the Mid-America Trucking Show. And every year the show produces a dominant theme, albeit unwritten, in the collection of new products introduced there.

If there was an unspoken theme to this year's Mid-America Trucking Show, it was probably the focus on integrated drivetrains. And Martin Daum, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America, had some interesting things to say about automated transmissions in general.

“Proprietary” is a magic word among truck builders. It describes components of the company’s own manufacture or design that are installed on the company’s own trucks. For truck users, this can be a good thing, because they’re designed to work specifically with a company’s other components.

Traditional thinking on automated manual transmissions has it that AMTs are the great equalizers – bridgers of skill gaps between the best and the worst drivers in the fleet. While that’s still true, AMTs now bring even more to the fuel-economy table, offering fuel savings in their own right beyond what even the most professionally driven manual transmission could accomplish.

To understand Electronics Remanufacturing Co. (ERC), you need to first understand President Russ Schinzing and his passion for electronics. That passion helped lead to ERC being honored with Mike Hill Heavy Duty Remanufacturer of the Year Award.